A grass roots effort to ban photo radar enforcement in Arizona has failed to garner the signatures needed to make the statewide ballot this November. Yesterday was the deadline for turning in the signatures to the Arizona Secretary of State’s office.

Arizona was the first state to operate automated cameras on Interstate highways.

Arizona Citizens Against Photo Radar said during a press conference that the organization only gathered 120,000 voter signatures of the 153,365 signatures needed to qualify. The failure of the signature drive means that controversial photo radar will remain in local jurisdictions throughout the state. Proponents say that the cameras reduce crashes and save lives.

However, after fierce citizen opposition an automated-ticketing operation consisting of 78 fixed and mobile photo-enforcement units on interstate highways will cease operation after 15 July. An Australian company, Redflex, operates the revenue raising units for the state of Arizona. More than 1 million citations have been automatically generated since the state started installing the ticketing cameras a couple of years ago.